A Sliver In The Sky came about a few summers ago when the day camp I worked at was focusing on the theme of Jewish holidays. We wanted to begin with Rosh Chodesh, which mead educational sense, but as I researched my musical options all I found were a handful of feminist chants. Nothing against feminists, but I wasn’t about to ask third-graders to get excited about meditative chant at summer day camp.So finally, I had to write something that the kids — and really, anyone at any age — could sing. This was the result.

Like some of my earlier liturgical settings, both Elohai Neshama and Achat Sha’alti were written simply as a response to my not knowing other settings of these blessings at the time, or being burned out on the very few settings I did know and wanting to try something different.

Mah Tovu is one of the two most personal songs on this album. In the process of what I only later understood to be a nervous breakdown I had, to be honest, fallen from grace and fallen apart, resulting in being let go from a job. I wasn’t liking myself or my situation very much at all. One evening, over drinks in a friend’s kitchen, I shared my story and told my friend that I’d been thinking a lot about the Torah story of Balaam, the prophet-for-hire sent to curse the Israelites.I wanted to explore and maybe understand my situation through the eyes of Balaam, who also failed and fell down hard. Where did the curses go? I asked. My very wise friend looked me in the eye, half-smiled and said, “Maybe there’s a song in that.”

In 2014, I was hired by a large synagogue in the midwest for my first out-of-town posting as a High Holy Days soloist. I was, in a word, terrified. I imagined myself standing before the open ark, singing the traditional Cantor’s prayer and completely freezing up. So I wrote I Stand Here as a way to calm my fears and focus on the task at hand. The following year, at home for the Holy Days, I was invited by my rabbi to use it as an alternate for the traditional Hineni when I led the Yom Kippur Musaf service. Ever since, I’ve used it to collect myself and focus while preparing High Holy Days music.

I wrote Let It Burn as part of the process of coming to terms with my breakdown and figuring out how to move on. I took inspiration from the Talmudic story of the rabbi who spoke out against Roman occupiers and literally had to hide with his son in a cave while soldiers looked for him. When he and his son emerged from the cave, their righteous rage gave them the power to cause anything they looked at to spontaneously combust (not unlike the lead character in Steven King’s “Firestarter”). God ordered the rabbi and his son to go back into the cave and figure out how to calm down their power so it would not hurt everyone in its path, and to channel it for the greatest good. It’s a hard lesson, and one worth learning.

I grew up as a secular Jew, not really celebrating anything more than Chanukah and Passover and never affiliating with a synagogue community or going to Jewish summer camp. I had no connection to Jewish communal life. Years later, when my mother was in hospice, I got a call asking me to come down to the hospice house so my mother could perform the commandment of saying Vidui, the confessional prayers one says on Yom Kippur — and also when one is on their deathbed.I had never heard of this ritual, but I went, sat with my mom and the on-call rabbi and was profoundly moved by the whole thing. That night was the beginning of my journey into Jewish communal life and regular Jewish observance.A Cracked Jar was a commission from a synagogue, and although they wound up not using it (they went in another direction at the last minute) it remained with me and is now one of my favorites. I find comfort in it every time I sing it, and I hope others find comfort in hearing it.

Now Is All We Have is a response to the homeless encampments that have overtaken sidewalks and parking lots throughout Portland and other cities across the United States. We have a long way to go to make things better, and likely won’t live long enough to see it through. That’s why we have to teach our children, and they have to teach theirs, how to help those in need.

I began writing my second setting of the evening prayer, Hashkiveynu II, several years ago. Sometimes songs work out best when I start them, put them aside for awhile and then come back to them months or even years later. This was one of those songs.

My friend, Rabbi Alex Shuval-Weiner, was in her final year as an associate rabbi at the large midwest synagogue where I was the cantorial soloist in 2014. While I was there, she asked me if I could write a setting of the Threefold Blessing that she could sing. Alex has a lovely voice, which made my job easy. She had told me to take my time, knowing that some song ideas take months to percolate; but I wound up presenting her with it in four days. Today she’s a senior rabbi at another synagogue where she sings this melody for life cycle events. I’m very happy that this setting of Y’varech’cha has served her so well.

The last song here is also the most recently written one. In July 2017 I spent a lovely week as a teacher-in-residence at Camp Solomon Schechter in Washington State. There was a cedar tree outside the window of my room and during my free time I found myself singing the refrain in my head. I wrote the whole song in a couple of hours, shared it with the camp’s executive director and he really liked it. Since then, it has gotten inside my head and heart and won’t leave. So I decided Cedar Tree would be a nice way to close out the album.

GRATITUDE.

— God, The Is-ness. For everything that I can’t explain.— Liz Schwartz, the love of my life. My wife, lover, muse, source of quiet wisdom,and a loving spirit who gives me courage to explore, invent and question and asweet place to come home to. There is no one else I’d rather take this ride with.— My family, who nod and smile when they don’t get me and jump up and downand do cartwheels when they do get me. I bask in your love daily and know howblessed I am by you all.— Havurah Shalom, the beautiful community of souls that has given my hearta Jewish home in Portland, and where I’m inspired to create in the shelter of afearless, justice-seeking, loving embrace. I love my Havurah.— Rabbi Joey Wolf, for believing in my music and for teaching me to get thehell out of my own way.— Rabbi Alex Shuval-Weiner, for reminding me to listen more. There is musicin the spaces between the notes.— Rabbi Art Nemitoff and everyone at The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah(Overland Park, KS), for giving me such a sweet musical and spiritual home awayfrom home.— Machane Jehudah (Overland Park, KS), home of an innovative educationalprogram and the best Jewish day camp in the universe. I am honored and proudto be associated with MJ. Special thanks to Dayna Gershon, Emily Williams andall the MJ Alumni, for inspiring me to create and teach more and better every summer.I cannot wait to return each June for another round of music, ruach and fun.— Rick and Elisa Recht and everyone at Song Leader Boot Camp, for aprofound and unshakable belief in possibility. Because All You Need IS Vav.— Cantors Sharon Kohn and Barbara Slader, for your gifts of honesty, integrity,creativity, inspiration and acceptance. Sweet singers of Israel, you are each atreasure and a blessing.— Stacy Beyer, for reminding me that being authentic is mandatory, in musicand in everything else.— My sweet OTG (Off-The-Grid) students and their families, who want tocarve their own authentic doorways into Jewish life and who teach me how tobe a better Jew and a better human in the process.